Motorland Aragon proved a source of much angst for MotoGP riders after their first race on its relaid surface - and looks to have played a part, albeit perhaps a small one, in the latest championship lead change.
Rider feedback on the grip offered by the venue, back on the MotoGP calendar after a year out and located in one of the more desert-like parts of Spain, was mixed-to-positive after Friday running.
The consensus had been that while it was untenably dirty and slippery at the start of running, Aragon gripped up considerably through the day - which was proven by Marc Marquez smashing in a new lap record at the end of Friday's action.
But rainfall began towards nighttime and lasted intermittently through the night. It meant built-up rubber was washed away from the racing line and the track was dirty again.
This was an issue for the duration of Saturday's 11-lap sprint - but there was a separate yet connected concern specifically for the start.
Early trouble
Several riders got away horribly off the line, most notably reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia, who had qualified ahead of main title rival Jorge Martin but had that success undone immediately.
Bagnaia's Ducati went near-sideways off the line, the Italian fortunate to avoid collision with an inevitably-faster starting Alex Marquez and even more fortunate that the short run down to Turn 1 spared him worse position losses.
Given suspicions that polesitter Marc Marquez had much superior pace, Bagnaia - an otherwise reliably excellent starter this season - planned to take the lead and hold Marquez back for as long as possible but had to admit defeat immediately.
"Yesterday in the Safety Commission [meeting], the first thing I asked was 'please clean the starting grid'," said Bagnaia.
"Maybe they did. Then it rained again. So, maybe they didn't do it again.
"But as soon as I arrived on the starting grid, I saw how dirty it was and I was already trying to prevent what happened. Releasing a bit slower the clutch, but it was the same.
"I was just lucky that Alex managed to avoid me because that could've been very dangerous."
Bagnaia had qualified third so lined up on the inside of the main straight, far from the racing line. And he was not alone in complaining.
"I went to race direction [representatives] on the grid," said Aleix Espargaro - another rider to get a terrible start, from the middle of row four, who then locked the front and crashed into Fabio Di Giannantonio.
"I said, 'It's dangerous, to start like this, the left side of the grid is completely brown'. And the answer was, 'We know'."
“This is unacceptable," lamented Yamaha's Alex Rins, starting on the inside of row seven.
"The track was so dirty. For sure [they should have cleaned it more]. You see Pecco, Aleix, [Franco] Morbidelli, myself. All of us [getting terrible starts] on the dirt."
The Race understands MotoGP's position is that the grid was cleaned "as much as possible" but that those efforts were countered by rain. Marquez theorised an improvement should come on Sunday after the lower classes' races.
The track was being cleaned on the start/finish straight once again on Saturday evening to avoid a repeat of the issue on race day.
A cagey race
In the end, there was also considerable irritation about the track condition after the start.
The consensus appeared to be that the grip was worse than Friday morning's at the start of Saturday, and Augusto Fernandez reckoned it did not really progress like it had on Friday.
"The conditions for me are unacceptable," said Espargaro - though he was also quick to point out that, with Aprilia's riders (apart from Miguel Oliveira) having struggled much more than most in these conditions, it was not a justification for his team's woes.
"Half of the grid or even more after five laps were lapping in 1m50s, which is the laptime of Alonso Lopez in Moto2 [on Friday]. But it's not an excuse. Because the others are faster than us."
Espargaro said it was worse than the lesser-used tracks in Qatar and Indonesia. "The pace of Marc, that has been on another planet during this weekend, was 1m48s. We did 1m46s in 2022. Nothing more to say.”
KTM has thrived this weekend in the low-grip conditions, but Jack Miller too acknowledged it felt strange - describing his feeling through the longer corners as like riding in the wet.
"You get that really slow understeer, it's not really doing much but you know it's there and you're just trying to ride around the issues, trying to move your body, do what you can, but everything has kind of got to be done nice and gently, you can't really do any sporadic movements."
But it's the lack of grip off-line that is the big worry in race conditions, according to Honda's Luca Marini.
"The first two laps were really dangerous because as soon as you go out of the black line of the tyres [the rubber put down], it's a disaster. You lose everything, it's easy to crash.
"And we were lucky that everything was fine at the end."
"Every time [I went to overtake] I closed my eyes a bit because it was a bit dangerous," concurred Ducati's Enea Bastianini, who went from 14th to seventh.
Bagnaia's woe
Ultimately, though Bagnaia was hindered by the start, he did not feel that was what undid his race.
"I arrived in Turn 5, trying to overtake Miguel, and as soon as I arrived there I understood that something wasn't working in the normal direction," said Bagnaia, who is now back behind second-place finisher Jorge Martin in the riders' standings.
"The same thing that happened yesterday morning [when Bagnaia ran well off the pace in FP1] happened today.
"It's out of our control. You can't do anything about it. You can be precise and perfect in anything, and when things like this happen, they happen. So you can't control."
Asked if he was making a suggestion he had a subpar tyre, he said: "I will not say what it was. But it was not from me, it was not from the bike and it was not from the team."
But he did later elaborate: "My feeling was very bad with the front, honestly. Not the first time.
"This season, honestly, was quite constant. But this time I had this feeling twice in the same weekend. And it cannot happen, honestly."
The Race understands that Michelin is aware several riders were unhappy with their front tyres but believes that to be a consequence of the track condition coupled with the new asphalt and the soft rear tyre, universally in use in the sprint, pushing the front.
A preliminary analysis of Bagnaia's front tyre from the race has so far turned up "nothing abnormal" - and it is known both the temperature and the pressure were in the appropriate range.
